


All the Days Ahead

by deandratb



Series: Uncharted Skies [3]
Category: Firefly
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2018-10-25 07:19:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10759440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deandratb/pseuds/deandratb
Summary: It was supposed to be just another job on the outskirts of space. Instead, it changed everything.“You’ll be careful?” Mal shoots him that overconfident, reckless grin. “Always am.” It isn’t reassuring.





	1. Listen To The Murmurs, Carry Them Inside You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [broken_hearted_bard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/broken_hearted_bard/gifts).



> A very special gift for my spouse on their day of birth. One chapter per character POV, angst+fluff, with only the best of endings.
> 
> A/N: In this fic, Serenity the ship itself is a character, like it was in the source material. Just a heads up for a later chapter. :)

River screams, high and long, sounding more like a siren than a girl. Preparing for the job on Mykan, most of the crew ignore it, though the sound carries easily from where she sits on her bed. 

_So much blood. Screaming, and white light, and he goes...goes...blackbird rising and rings of fire,_ River thinks, shaking hard as Simon arrives. Her brother will always come when she calls, whether she likes it or not. The broken pieces of her, when she can tug them back together, want more for him than that. But he comes, because she screamed, and that must mean she shouldn’t be alone. 

She wishes she could explain that she’s never alone. She’ll never be alone again. That’s a comfort and a problem. His problem comes soon. She isn’t going to tell him. This time, her silence is a choice, held tight by tremblng lips and the stubborn chin that she got from their father.

_He’s not alone either. Not anymore. Handholding at the dinner table and mouths that greet and part in shadows. Simon’s happy._

_He’ll be happier._

She keeps her silence.

She lets it happen. 

_She’ll hear his screams next._

“River?” Simon is framing her face in his hands, searching her eyes with his own, attempting to find his little sister inside the chaos they made of her mind. 

She shakes her head, tries to pull away, tries to pull into herself. _Turtle into shell._ “No. No, no...Simon. I love you, Simon.”

Bewildered, he draws her close until the shaking stops. _Until she stops._

 _Too late now. It’s coming._

“River, mei-mei, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she tells him, taking in shallow, shuddering breaths. She means it, now. Nothing wrong, nothing broken, she can breathe. _Here he comes._

“Hey, Doc, little sis okay?” Mal stands in the doorway, looking rough and ready as always. 

“I don’t know.” Simon’s helpless expression makes Mal want to fix whatever’s wrong, though he tries not to show it. He can’t fix what’s been done to the poor kid’s head. He’s pretty sure nobody can. 

He’ll never say that to Simon, deepening that wounded look in his eyes. _But she knows._

_She agrees with him._

Simon passes the question to River, letting her go. “Are you okay?”

Her eyes don’t meet the captain’s when she nods. “Fine. Staying right here. Won’t make trouble.”

Mal frowns, confused, but doesn’t bother arguing. There’s work to be done. While he’s grown a mite fond of the prodigy, he doesn’t spend a lot of time trying to have sensical conversation with her. 

“Alright then. You stay put.” He turns away from her, toward Simon, and the two of them form a closed circle. A loop.

_A ring._

It’s like she’s not even there. _Is she?_

“I’ll be back soon as I can,” the captain tells Simon. His hands roam over her brother’s shoulders, back, arms, aiming to reassure. “Just a simple swap, cargo for pay. Shouldn’t be more’n a few hours.”

Simon reads between the lines, the way she doesn’t have to, because for her the lines dissolve. _Salt into water._ Carrying out cargo, even to a remote part of the planet, should take an hour at most. “Why so long?”

“Our employer this time around is very...particular,” Mal decides on the word carefully. “Gotta go through screening, and follow a map that he won’t give us ‘til we land.”

“Oh.” Simon nods. Things are usually more straightforward on the border planets, but in his life that was, such requirements were commonplace. Hoops make insecure, powerful men feel safer. Insecure men are dangerous. “You’ll be careful?”

Mal shoots him that overconfident, reckless grin. “Always am.” It isn’t reassuring.

After double-checking his weapons and the rest of his pockets, Mal pulls Simon in for a long, slow kiss. _They do that more now._

River isn’t sure if it’s only in front of her--she can’t get the relevant data. _Not accessible._ But it makes the metal of the ship heat. It makes her blush sometimes, and Simon doesn’t notice. 

_He should notice. But he won’t._

It’s wrong, not telling-- _little girl keeping secrets next to a wishing well._ She loves the captain; he’s family, and Serenity is home. But Simon is...Simon. He’s all she has. Deep down, he is all that she has, and now he has someone else, spinning them off-balance. Tilted. 

When the gravitational force of a planet tilts, you fall.

_And then death._

The two men pull back, hands entwined, and her brother brushes his lips against Mal’s cheek. “See you soon, then,” Simon says, smoothing down the front of the brown coat that brands him an outlaw.

 _Her brother and the outlaw._

They exit together, leaving her curled up in the cacophonous silence of her room.

_Her brother the outlaw._

She hears their feet clatter down the metal stairs, and knows that Simon will see the group off, even as he stays behind in case she needs him.

_Her brother._

River squeezes her eyes shut and waits for it to be over. “I love you, Simon,” she whispers again. He can’t hear her; he’s already gone. 

Mal is almost gone, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title quoted from "Breaking Light" by Vienna Teng.


	2. Unsettle The Ground Beneath You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wash POV. _They shouldn’t be done yet. And it should be Zoe on the com. He feels his blood go cold._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super short, but what better way to kickoff Nano than to finally return to this gift-fic? I started this on your birthday, and with any luck will finish it by mine. <3

The group leaves early for the exchange--when Zoe’s involved, she always insists on taking the extra time to scout the area for trouble. Wash is grateful; it’s hard enough watching his wife stroll into danger on a constant basis like it’s a day at the beach. _Knowing that she would lay down her life for Mal is a whole other problem._

He is left behind in the cockpit, of course, as usual. Somebody has to be ready to get them running at a moment’s notice...and it’s not as though he actually wants to play space ranger. Not really.

“It’s just that sometimes it would be nice to be asked,” he tells his menagerie of dinosaurs. “I would end up dead...but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like the invitation.”

Waiting for the signal of their return, he palms one of his toys, running it between his fingers absently while he listens to the faint echoes of Kaylee and River talking on the deck. He's too worried to entertain himself. New jobs have the most potential for going wrong in ways they can't plan for.

It’s Jayne who radios him, less than an hour after they left. “Wash, turn ‘er on! Now. We’re on our way.”

“Jayne?” The fact that Jayne actually uses full words puts him on alert. _They shouldn’t be done yet. And it should be Zoe on the com._ He feels his blood go cold. Something’s wrong. Very wrong. 

“Yeah. Time to fly.” 

He can hear strain in the man’s voice--Jayne’s breathing is labored. The absence of his wife, or even Mal, is a major red flag. “Jayne! Where’s Zoe?”

“She’s right here. We’re on our way. Just get us ready to **go.** ”

Wash can’t help not trusting Jayne. If one person could be the embodiment of untrustworthy, it would definitely be Jayne Cobb. “Is she injured?”

“She’s fine. Gorram it, Wash, hurry it up. We’re almost there.”

He’s already flicking switches, watching the reassuring lights power up. “I want to speak to my wife.”

“Well, you’re gonna as soon as we get there.”

There’s no point in arguing with the man over coms. Wash frowns and decides that the ship isn’t taking off until he sees Zoe is okay.

He hears the gunfire before they appear, and leaps from his seat before he remembers that somebody has to fly this thing. His first thought is sweet, blessed relief. _Zoe is okay._ She’s in a familiar battle stance, firing her gun with one hand and using her other arm...

His second thought is _**oh shit.**_ She’s using her other arm to half-drag the captain toward the ship. Jayne’s giving them cover, and Mal...

There’s so much blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Titled quoted from "Watershed" by Vienna Teng.


End file.
